Songs My Mother Never Taught Me (2 page)

My mother always addressed her husband as ‘my Hodja', a respectful form of address to a senior teacher. He was one of the twentieth century's leading mathematicians, ‘unmatched in Graph Theory' according to his former student and the bibliophile Professor Haluk Oral, whom I met after my father's death. My father published in the
Journal of Combinatorial Theory
but his timidity (and fear of flying) led him to refuse offers of guest professorships and participations in international conferences. I think my mother devoted herself to publicizing my father's genius. I was torn: should I be jealous of her exaggerated interest in my father or feel sorry for him? Every time she whispered in my ear, ‘You're very fortunate to be the son of a genius,' I would repeat my vow that I would never be a genius when I grew up. When my father became eligible for retirement and, thanks to his wife, rose to the ranks of the rich, he left his job immediately.

‘An all-out war against the socio-economic defect of shallowness that sticks to this country like tar,' was the Hodja's new mission. My mother whispered it distinctly in my ear, and promised me a prize of $100 for repeating it without a mistake. Reverently she said, ‘Arda, your father is a genius and a man of eminence. From now on, he will mobilize all his abilities for this grand project.'

The structure of our nuclear family life was determined by the tempo of my father's activities. It took order to the nth degree. I felt ill at ease every time he emerged from his soulless study to join us. As the creaky old door of the living room opened, my mother would jump up to push the velvet pouffe in front of his antique armchair. Baroque music was set up on the hi-fi and, while his drink was being prepared, he remained silent. Unnecessary or perhaps trivial subjects would be rejected and a new agenda respectfully anticipated.

‘Enigma', the silent hairdresser, came to our mansion when our master's hair grew too long. Fabrics chosen by my mother were made into suits and if the head tailor of Zegna's was in town he would drop by for fittings. On holidays celebrating the Republic my mother and I took off for London and went to concerts and plays. She grumbled at having to shop in Harrods and in Bond Street boutiques for the husband who couldn't or wouldn't join us for fear of flying. If religious holidays coincided with spring our family took a trip to Venice. Walking rapidly through the time-warp streets of this solitary city, bridge after bridge, my father, if he wasn't solving equations, would be composing theorems. We stayed at the Bauer Hotel, the secluded palace in St Mark's Square; if Cimador, Dragonetti, Lorenzetti or Bottesini were being performed, we would stroll to the charming Church of San Vitale. (How is it I recall these marginal composers of classical music in whom my mother feigned an interest because my father had such a passion for them? Ever since I was seven I haven't forgotten a single name I've read. My father's cheap display of genius was due to his ability to multiply five-digit numbers in his head with the speed of a computer. I don't know if anyone else can do this, but ever since I got the hang of the four basic operations of arithmetic, I've been able to tackle six-digit numbers. I concealed this meaningless gift of mine which would have been offensive to my father and would have roused my mother to an ecstasy of pride.)

Thanks to my mother's unfailing attentions, my father turned into a querulous gourmand. Favourite foods were specially ordered – fresh halloumi from Kyrenia, lean pastrami from Kayseri, mildly hot sausage from Afyon, hazelnuts double-roasted from Giresun and spicy chickpeas from Çorum. Tea and jam were procured from Fortnum & Mason in London, pastries and sauces from Fauchon in Paris. My mother had even learned how to serve a cheese omelette Café les Deux Magots style. If there was a special order of oven-cooked Sicilian pizza from Il Pomodoro (London), or extra-tender veal from Peter Luger (New York), they were met at the airport and ceremoniously rushed to the mansion like life-saving medicines.

My father, who couldn't ride a bicycle let alone drive a car, confessed that, ‘rather than fight a duel with a computer', he preferred to just get on with his work longhand.

He couldn't swim or sunbathe by the pool. He was nervous of miniature dogs and sleepy cats and electronic instruments. It irked me when, tired of the TV channel he was watching, and too lazy even to lean over to reach for the remote control, he'd shout to my mother, frantically busy in the kitchen. Sometimes I wondered if he even pulled the chain after relieving himself. I was sure that when they made love my mother was twice as exhausted. It seemed his mechanical inadequacy was ‘the sublime characteristic that separated his genius from the rest'.

I was sure that even if my father had been twenty-eight instead of forty-eight at my birth, we would never have had a close relationship. He was not loving. A certain attitude to those around him seemed to indicate that you owed him respect for sharing the same time zone with you. His merciless wit would wound anyone who talked nonsense. He was tall, green-eyed, attractive and cynical. I liked to compare him to John le Carré, master of the Cold War spy thriller. If I was the nightingale in a gold cage, caught in the spiral of my mother's house arrest, he was the rare exotic fish in an aquarium made for one.

The Master, as his wife called him, was the only man who could gather under one roof fragmented Social Democrats and disgruntled right-wing intellectuals. He even had a plan to raise the level of prosperity in their unfortunate country to that of Spain within five years, and to become Prime Minister in the first general election.

On the eve of my fourteenth birthday we received the news of my father's death. After the first shock I had to prepare myself for what was to come.

While I was busy concealing my potential genius my mother continued hissing like a snake for three years, ‘When my son finishes high school he'll enrol in business studies at Harvard.'

I was accepted by Harvard with the help of influential teachers at my school, references from famous friends of my father and my mother's efforts, and I was happy for her. But when she had the tabloids print simplistic headlines like, ‘Harvard Chosen for Top Professor's Son,' she became, from that moment, the object of my disdain.

If I didn't call her twice a day in my first year her partially suppressed anger would find me out at the oddest hours to extract a verbal report. To stop her flying over at once and picking a quarrel with my tutors, I had to make 90 per cent grades. Unfortunately, the summer I passed into the second year she was appointed Project Consultant at Harvard. We were to spend an intimate spell of two terms in a pile of bricks called a villa overlooking the River Charles in the campus city of Cambridge. In the remaining years that seemed to last for ever, while guest lecturer Ada Ergenekon was teaching comparative literature in her pretentious English, I was overwhelmed by depression.

I'd even prepared myself for the possibility of an American stepfather, as a way of escaping her irritating attentions. But, as she declared to the media world, ‘she could think only of her one and only Arda.' She made provocative use of dress, speech and body language to keep the men around her under control. I was furious when she flirted subconsciously with friends who came to see me. And with her artificial sincerity, subtlety and powerful mind games she was constantly trying to wear down my poor girlfriends.

My mother held various trading companies under the umbrella of the Taragano Financial Services, of which she was one of three partners. My grandfather, chairman of the board of directors, was uneasy with Uncle Salvador, his assistant, who was behaving honestly and failing to increase corporate profits. He would tickle my nose with his amber rosary beads and say, ‘Finish your schooling, for goodness sake, then we'll make a killing and share it between us.'

My great-great-grandfather had risen into the wealthy class through his black-market profiteering on basic foodstuffs. As for my grandfather, on the eve of the military intervention of 12 September 1980, he'd been involved in smuggling gold and then turned his hand to fictitious exports and pilfered government tax returns, thereby making a profit of $150,000,000 in the process, only to regret that ‘we missed the big one!'

My mother's shares were transferred to my name after I graduated with honours from Harvard, but I knew she wouldn't allow me to move to the high-rise flat my grandfather had given me. She'd also rebuked my uncle for buying me a sports car.

My world darkened that summer night I heard of Iris Murdoch's terminal illness while I was driving along the Bosphorus. My mother later reported that ‘the minibus that hit your Ferrari from behind flew into the sea at Yeniköy and the pervert driver with his Slav slut are now feeding the fish.' I remember my inner organs shifting at the moment of impact. As I was gradually sliding down that dark tunnel perhaps I smiled at the consoling thought that sooner or later my mother would drag me out into the light. I had severe head injuries and was subsequently admitted for surgery and diagnosed with acute subdural haematosis. Despite a successful operation, and because of the possibility of chronic bleeding, I was flown to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, USA, in an ambulance plane brought from Switzerland. It seems a second operation was performed to prevent blood accumulating between the brain cells. For seven months I wrestled with visual and speech difficulties, partial memory loss and, most embarrassing of all, incontinence. I recall only half-seeing my mother and being unable to remember if my name came from a river or a lake. If she wasn't beside me when I woke, I'd hear her crying in the next room and start to worry. A doctor of Tartar origin conveyed to me in his broken Turkish that if it hadn't been for my mother not only would a quick recovery be out of the question, but I'd probably have remained partially disabled. During my convalescence I'd longed in vain to be rid of my cerebral talents. I vowed, as we boarded the New York–Istanbul flight, that I would never ever again upset
my saintly mother
.

As the noon ezan ended and before her ghost entered the scene, I had to throw the cigar butt that had fallen on the floor into the Ottoman ashtray. My mother's soul was even capable of arriving uninvited while I was wrestling with whatever old bottle of booze was at hand. Then I could wonder if she'd put the Tartar doctor up to that last compliment.

I can't just invent a shower of autumn rain as in trashy novels and then drop off to sleep. Instead, I'll doze off humming a passage from Küçük İskender's
Rock Manifesto
²
...

 

1
   A mischievous wandering djinn in Jewish folklore which takes over a human soul until driven out by prayer.

2
   While I weep in my room, take a shower in blood, Mother! Warm me up milk and menstrual blood! Please don't be startled if I howl to the full moon, don't be angry with my friend the devil for staying over now and then, don't be angry with him having an orgasm and yelling, ‘666 666' as he urinates in the toilet ... you sing and dance, Mother, while others are being murdered! Clean my weapons, oil them! Don't even try to understand why I masturbate till dawn! We are alone, all of us alone. I know it's very funny, but now it's time for you too to learn this, Mother!

Our Lord the Prophet read the following prayer for Hasan and Hüseyin, his grandsons:

‘Lord God! I seek refuge in nurturing words, against all humankind, djinns, devils, all harmful things and the evil eye.'

I confess I'm the poet who wrote the following graffiti on the wall: ‘How can I yearn for tears when I haven't been given a taste for laughter?' and: ‘Show me the poor soul who has never been victimized first by his own family!'

My master Baki, may he dwell in paradise, uttered the words, ‘How can the Four Sacred Books fit into a single volume if they're not more poetically precise than
Hamlet
?' In the first twenty-five years of my life – shall I see a second? – spent struggling to survive, I couldn't even enjoy my unhappiness to the full. If your humble servant is not to upset you with episodes from his naive youth, he must get down to the nitty-gritty of the psychological make-up of his soul.